


4.00: Frustrate Their Knavish Tricks

by Amand_r



Series: Torchwood, Season Four [2]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen, Prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-10
Updated: 2010-11-10
Packaged: 2017-10-13 03:56:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/132573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amand_r/pseuds/Amand_r
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes they save the country and no one knows anything.  And then they get muffins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	4.00: Frustrate Their Knavish Tricks

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this back shortly after the British elections in 2010. Inspired by [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgsKwz7zupQ) video of Gordon Brown departure of 10 Downing Street and the motorcade with the Black SUV. (Vid is lolariously awesome)

"Don't you think this is a little…conspicuous for us?" Dee said as she ran her fingers along the arc of the steering wheel. "I mean—"

Gwen checked the slide on her gun again. "No. Eyes up front."

"I can't believe it," Lois mumbled from the back again, and Dee and Gwen rolled theirs. This was not the first time Lois had said that.

"Well, I can," Maggie said. "Heads up their arses. What kind of fix is this?"

Dee sighed. Gwen glanced behind her. "Don't. We said we weren't going to talk about it."

Lois leant forward and rested her chin on the seat over Dee shoulder. "How can you even remotely _want_ to be a Tory?"

"Lois—"

"No no, I want to hear this. Really, Dee, of all people you—"

Dee started the car. "Ma'am?"

Gwen looked out the windshield at the guard advancing towards them now, former Prime Minister Brown and his wife and children making their way to the cars. "Okay then, this discussion is binned." She paused. "Forever."

Lois sat back in her seat with a thud and picked up her scanning equipment. "No odd readings or traces within a ten kilometre radius, unless you count the hypocrite in the front seat here."

Dee adjusted her seat to give Lois less leg room.

Gwen chose to ignore it, and Maggie handed them all the mini-Geiger counters. "This is just a precaution," she said cheerily, but didn't elaborate. "Trust me. Useless, really. Not unlike—"

"When I really said that I didn't want to hear any more political talk while on the job, I meant it," Gwen said in a louder than normal voice. The cars were starting to pull away and they were third in the motorcade. Dee flipped the blue lights, and not for the first time Gwen was glad they hadn't branded the sides of the car. The license plate was enough if you were looking for it.

Dee fit herself seamlessly into the motorcade, making casual speed for Buckingham Palace. If there were going to be incidents, then they would happen now.

Lois's scanner beeped. "Oh, there they are," she said, "coming in from the south, southeast, about a…this thing says they're a half-klick away." She looked up. "What's a klick?"

Gwen groaned. "We stole that from US UNIT. It's a quarter kilometre."

"What's a—"

"Two fifty metres," she barked back. "Still coming?" The motorcade was moving smoothly down the road, no sign of disruption.

Lois nodded. "Above ground. We should be seeing them in the sky by now."

They all looked out the window. Dee gripped the wheel in one hand and held her fingers to the specialised comm in her ear with the other. "Should I signal?"

Maggie smacked the side of the tech in her hand. "Oh _you communist piece of shite_ come on!" The gadget spluttered then whined with a shrill noise and Lois and Gwen covered their ears. Dee just looked irritated. "Oh, there we go. Disco." Gwen turned to watch her fiddle with a few knobs, her eyes glued to the screen.

"Mags?" she asked, looking at the motorcade as it approached Buckingham Palace. "Now would be a _really_ good time."

Lois glanced at her scanner. "Quarter-klick."

Dee slowed down with the flow of cars. "Should I signal?"

Maggie beat the tech against the side of the door panel and it let out a howl, and then she looked up. "There. It's done."

"She's right, they just did a header into a skip in the back of a Costa," Lois confirmed.

"They should be immobilised for at least three hours or so, if Toshiko calibrated this thing right," Maggie said, peering at the tech. "It's hard to tell how this is supposed to work normally. What I had taken for explosion damage might just actually be a warm-up period for the crystal inside."

Dee pulled in smoothly, and Gwen stopped to look at the palace in front of them. This was as close as she'd ever got, actually. Despite that she spoke to the Queen often, communicated with emails and secure documents every other day, it seemed like, she'd never actually met the woman.

Well, she thought as they watched Brown and his wife get out of the car, she wouldn't be doing it today, either.

She wondered if Jack had ever met the Queen either. Probably. Hell back during the war they'd—oh god, there were many things that she didn't want to think about, and that was—a straw brim hat hanging precariously from a lampshade, granny knickers, a pair of braces draped over the—oh god it was emblazoned on her eyes. She thought about something else. Something else. Welsh Corgis. Oh god. _Eugh._

Before she'd met Jack her imagination hadn't been nearly as fertile, and in some ways that had been a blessing.

"Let me get this straight," Dee said as they finally pulled away, discharged of duty with a brief nod of the head from security. _Yes, yes, thank you Torchwood for saving us from disaster and not blowing anything up. You may go now._ "We just foiled an alien invasion plot involving the old Prime Minister, the new Prime Minister, and the Queen, and no one knows."

"Can't have Brown giving _bad_ advice," Gwen murmured. "When he's all but telling her who to pick next."

Lois grunted. "This explains Margaret Thatcher," she mumbled.

Gwen considered. "No, I think that was entirely the human race," she offered.

Maggie turned off her machine and made them cough up their Geiger counters. Gwen realised that she'd never let go of hers, still loosely clutched in her non-gun hand. She put up the weapon too. The rest of this was going to be fairy cakes.

Maybe they could all get a coffee while they were there. It was a long drive back to Cardiff. Well, not the way Dee drove, she considered as they rounded a corner at what was certainly an inadvisable speed.

"An invasion fleet you could fit in a foot locker," Dee mused, glancing at her. "Seems like a lot of fuss."

Gwen glanced out the window and sighed. "Sometimes the most dangerous things come in small packages," she murmured.

They were quiet for a moment until they came to a traffic light, and Dee slowed but didn't stop.

Lois leaned forward again. "You don't suppose Cameron is—"

Dee applied the brakes and they all jerked forward. Lois's face mashed into the back of Dee's seat. Gwen wondered if she was going to have to sit the two of them down. Usually they got on like houses on fire. Well, politics brought out the worst in everyone these days.

"I want a muffin," Maggie said into the awkwardness. "I've been good and I foiled an alien invasion this evening." Dee parked the car in a no parking zone and slipped the red tag that said they were allowed to park wherever they wanted in all of the UK on their dashboard. Some day someone was going to try to break the windshield and steal that. Gwen would pay good money to see them try to get through the transparisteel.

They clambered out of the SUV and stretched legs that had been sitting for too long and filled with tension. Lois stretched and one of her fists hit Dee's arm. Gwen often thought that Dee was a giant grumpy dog that grudgingly let kitten-Lois climb all over her and do all manner of bad things.

Maggie stuffed her hands into her pockets and rounded the back of the SUV for the containment unit.

It didn't take long. There were three ships the diameter of bowling balls, all in the skip. They didn't even have to dig for them, and the little critters trapped inside would have been comical due to their size if they hadn't the ability to burrow into human organs and control people like giant muppets. Maggie latched the box, set the digital deadlock seal and they tossed the box into the hatchback.

"Now I really deserve a muffin," Maggie said, eyeing the very cute waiter wiping down tables in front of the coffee shop.

Gwen tilted her head and stared. She was married, not dead. And it was a nice arse. Dee made a noise in the back of her throat that could have been either exasperation or approval. Lois was reading the menu on the side window, oblivious to the manflesh. Ah, well.

"Yes, I think it's muffin time," she murmured. "Torchwood owes us a cuppa."

END


End file.
